Reverend Rickeyhair.

A coupla weeks ago, at bonboncookiemonster's birthday party, dayooch and I had fun playing with Rickey's very pretty hair.

Beauty is subjective of course, but generally speaking, I think most people consider straight hair more pretty. In a side by side comparison, a single strand of straight hair may seem more beautiful than a squiggly one. But I think that Rickey's sunburst 'fro is so much prettier than mine. It's totally cool! Because you can braid it, twist it, hide small objects in it. And you can do all that, because his hair gets tangled with itself, and it sticks together.

That day, Rickey's hair taught me a sermon.

Rickey's hair is pretty because it does what we should be doing as Christians. Getting messy. Entangling into each other lives because we care. Causing ourselves to stick together. And making it hard to split apart. We are so much more beautiful together as one cohesive unit than a bunch of singular straight strands that may appear fine by itself, but lacks the strength of unity.

So let's learn from Rickey's hair, and stick together!

to be Jolly....

Tis the season to be jolly (jollie?)!! And what better way than to go out to Long Beach and play arcade games and bowl and virtual reality. And for the super super extreme people......EAT!!!

This Sunday (Dec 9th), i'd like to treat you (CAM NSLA) to some fun at GAMEWORKS in Long Beach. SO here's the deal, we come to church..set up...run service...breakdown...people scatter to eat...we recoup from food coma....and then reconvene at 7pm at GAMEWORKS!! if you plan on coming out please just shoot me an e-mail or comment on this blog. (tryin to get a head count).

Also, GREAT job this week guys. The entire service flowed really well and Adam has been giving us the thumbs up and Rave reviews!!!

MeHarmony.....the egg

India

Yo guys,

Check out the India team blogspot. Some really great stuff has happened, AND they put up some pictures.

Also watch out for your ministry leaders, they have some great stuff coming your way.

I hope that everyone has safe travels wherever you are going this week. Whether that's on a plane or on the 405. I know it sounds all wishy washy and stuff, but i am really thankful for this CAM team and that God has placed me here.

I Love You guys (and gals)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Shake what yo Saviour Gave Ya!!

WOWZERS!!! This past Sunday was Amazing. It started out with Lil Wang (margarita) leading us in Worship and then the Dance team took it to another level. Great job to everyone that took out extra time to make sure everything went well. Thanks dance team for coming out at 7 to make sure the dance was tight, this extra effort really showed on Sunday. And a special shout out to Veronica Yoon. I think she pushed in 20/22 cases that we have. AND shouts out to Jon Wu. He single-handedly did video this Sunday!!! And great job with the production to pull all the elements together (gloria)!! It's really great to see CAM continue our journey of MOVING FOWARD. As we move foward, let us not forget to clean up behind ourselves. It's a lil hard to tell the difference between Starbucks and NSLA because of all the trash left behind. And this applies to ALL of CAM (i could call you out, but i'll be nice) Let's all get ready for this new series ME-HARMONY. this is gonna be a great one on relationships. You guys have been doing a great job so keep up the great work!! Also this weekend there is an oppurtunity to show your sheepness and support our CAUSE ministry. And on Sunday, Hillsong will be in concert in West Covina!!

Hillsong Concert

Hey guys, here's a great oppurtunity to check out some great worshippers!! I think it's a free concert (and if its not don't let that be a reason not to come..see me) Since i'm sure space will be limited, we should try our best to rally together to get some carpools, and some seat saving people together!! for more info contact davis at dctalk523@gmail.com.

Mission Minded

I know i say/write this a lot, but everytime i think about our CAM team, i get excited. And this week is no different. NSLA film team field squad is about to go to India to record some history making stuff. Just think about it for a sec........we're about to send some Creative Arts dudes (and duddette) for missions' work!!! And just as i was thinking about this, i just remembered that our Worship Team led worship for a National Short Term Missions' Conference in the beginning of this year. It's like we were born to do this stuff.



Lets remember to keep the our teammates in prayer as they go abroad. And as they go to film this revival in India, we have a revival happening at NSLA this week. They've been on hiatus, but our Dance Team is BACK!!! They'll be up this Sunday, rocking the dance floor. Be there or be sad you missed it.

And last but not least, i'd like to send some more props to the light team. 3 weeks and they've made leaps and bounds!! But they still need some help. So if someone turns you down for serving in your ministry, ask them about serving with the light team (and don't take it personal if they say yes to lights)!!

You DO give a CAM!!!

Hey guys!! i guess you really do give a CAM!! I just wanted to say great job on Anniversary this past Sunday!! I know it might not seem like we did anything super huge, but just the fact that we thought it was a "normal" sunday was HUGE!!! Why was is soo huge? well let's think about it. Last year at this time we started services at about 9:45 cause we had little to no clue what was going on!! And now come 9:30, we're just waiting for the congregation to show up!! And let's look at the sound team this week. Kudos goes to those guys, we had another "rickEy" band (which is like at least 2 or 3 of EVERY instrument, my dream but sound nightmare). Those sound guys just looked at me, laughed and then had everything sounding good!! and Super props to the film team!! Many of you guys might not know this, but their equipment was robbed. And for the past couple of weeks they have been putting up great visuals for all to see (not to mention still producing videos and getting ready for a mission trip to India). Props (special thanks) also goes out to production. this past week was another production nightmare, not only did we add a speaker that likes to talk, but we threw in a 13 minute video, a moving foward prologue from Adam (who can get going when he's going), AND we had a Bar-B-Que (not to mention it happened 2wice)!! And before i give out more thanks, i think i'll start a new paragraph....

ok thats better!! It was just a great job all around. Way to go Set-up and Break down teams. And then another HUGE thanks to the lighting team! they are 2 weeks old using our own equipment and they have made sure that we have enough lights to run a service. And speaking of the Light Team.....WE HAVE A LIGHTING team so if you're interested in joining, or know somebody...please contact Derek Cook at dcook@woodmark.com. And kudos goes out to the Worship Team. they went to a Vocal Training seminar Friday night, and Saturday morning at 8am and then another rehearsal from 3-7 and then had an earlier call time. Thanks guys!!

So now that you all give a CAM, you can check here each week and i'll have stuff about whats going on and whats coming up and just kewl thangs.

p.s. ( i still have a lil more BBQ at the house...its goin quick!!)

a message from your friendly neighborhood film team

We hope all is well in your life as we would like to share some exciting news in ours. We’re going to India. “Why?” you ask. Well, keep reading.

The four of us have been invited to document an event put on by Truthseekers International over the Thanksgiving holiday. If you click the link at the end of this sentence, you’ll see information on the event from their Footwashing India brochure (link)…Okay, done reading?

As you know, we dabble in film, video and photography. Some of us are even lucky enough to make a living at it. As artists, we have a unique gift that can not only bless Truthseekers and the Indian people, but also you at home. We’re called to be witnesses of the gospel and this event is the gospel in action. What better way to demonstrate God’s love for people than through honoring, blessing, praying for and washing the feet of Indian peoples who have been rejected for centuries in India? And we get to witness this grand act of love. Not only that, God has blessed us with the opportunity to bring back the words and actions of our brothers and sisters in India back to you. This opportunity is tailor made for us to use our talents to bless others…and by tailor, we mean God.

Join us, will you? Here’s the help we need. Most importantly, please partner with us in prayer. Some things to pray for:

- God’s protection against spiritual and physical obstacles
- Sensitivity to His will
- A collaborative attitude
- That we can capture this event honestly and truthfully

Also, our goal is to raise $2500 each for airfare, food, production costs and other living expenses while in India. We will be leaving on November 10th and coming back on the 24th. Please send your support by November 3rd (checks payable to NewSong Church, tax deductible - write INDIA MISSION in subject line if you dont have a reponse card) to:

NewSong Church
5800D Hannum Ave
Suite D
Culver City, CA 90230

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.

Love and Blessings,
Jenny and Gary, Peter, Yooch

Please visit our India blog at: http://novemberinindia.blogspot.com/

N'Sync

Yo guys remember this group right. They were either a superstar to you or a big joke to you!! Well these guys were superstars to me. And no, not because i loved to watch Justin and JC shake it on stage, and not even because of the heart felt songs like Space Cowboy. But they were very on point with there talents (or whatever you wanna call it) and everyone involved on their show did spectacular jobs.

i recently re-bought the album (only because i left mine in GA). Their Madison Square Garden concert was bananas. there were like a million different elements in there. And some elements were Huge but only lasted 2 seconds and some elements were small but made all the difference. And it was fun for me to watch and analyze this show again. And you start to see, no matter how big or small the element....if one was missing, the whole show would suffer. And on top of all that, they had to do the exact same show over and over and over again and still bring the same energy, intensity and excitement.

i forgot where i was going with this. but the DVD is very inspiring to me and is full of ideas and things that we can use. if ever you want to watch it, just let me know.

Name Age Sex

the DVD is out!!! $5.00!!! lets push this so we can do more projects and get some equipment!!

Café Newsong

Video

YES!!!! This past Sunday i purposefully didn't listen to Adam preach. But not because i'm leading a heathen revolt or anything. i was curious to see if i could get a great sermon experience of Adam on my computer. And i did. Video team has stepped up the game and done a great job with the sermon online. This was also great because now we can better see and reflect on how our church looks and how to create a better enviroment. There's already tons of ideas flowing. But anyways....way cool man.

Franchise Church Service

So last night I saw the Bourne Ultimatum. It was a great movie. What was even better about the screening was that the director Paul Greengrass was there for Q&A afterwards. The moderator asked all the "fan" questions and Paul would answer them but kind of directed the conversation elsewhere. You could tell that he was there more to speak to the screeners and have kind of a heart to heart with us. As the "real" questions started to come in, Paul would share more and more of his take on film making and even life. One thing he started to talk about was the Franchise Film. He was explaining the difficulties and paradigms. And while he was explaining it, i thought about how it's the same in church. Paul was saying in a franchise film people want to experience the same thing as the 1st movie, but different!!! And i started to think about church. People are coming week after week to experience or learn about God in some way. And it's our job to give them that experience (and hopefully a new one) each week. So what's difficulty? I think it's that people want to be moved like the very 1st time they gave their life to Christ. But if we recreate that experience every Sunday it might lose its specialness. However, if we try to do some over the top abstract things, people might not get it and feel like we're just about a show. This is probably the biggest struggle for us as a CAM team. We want to add these elements to create a response/reaction, yet we don't want to manipulate the people. This is a topic that we could all probably talk about alot. Really i wanted to pitch the idea of a "franchise church service". And i'm not thinking of this monetarily. What i mean is, how do we give people the same experience that they had in one service, but make it different the next week!!! I want to encourage all of the ministries to reflect on this idea!

Let the People Know

YO team. How many of you guys have a camera (digital, analog, dv, phone)? Well we need help showing the congregation what's going on with our church. We do the advertising, but no one actually gets to see what happened at the event. So what does this mean?? well, if you have some kind of camera, and you go to an event......please please record a clip, take some pics, get some audio or something!! And if there's an event that you kinda feel like there's no reason for you to go.....you now have one!!! Go and take some photos. We want every event that we do to be shown to the public no later than 8 days after the event. So lets get out there and start shooting. (but not guns people)

VIBE MONSTER

YO!! VIBE was Amazing. I know to us it was business as normal but great job everybody. I'm still hearing reviews from this past weekend. If you were there for breakdown then you know that the whole stage up there was pretty much ours!!! (lights too). And for those that missed out. Don't worry, we'll have some more events that are screaming your name!!!